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Swarm Mother
The Swarm Mother is a fictional character in the Wild Cards series of books. It is the master unit of Swarm biomass that attacked Earth in 1985. History Spawned in an unknown part of the galaxy, the Swarm Mother was detected approaching Earth's Solar System first around 1777 by the Network, and then again when it was nearing the Solar System in the mid-1970s by the Astronomer. Detecting the high likelihood of intelligent life, it went into solar orbit where it hid while it gradually developed a cunning, if rudimentary, intelligence. In 1985 it determined that it had finally become ready to attack, the first target being a Network satellite in high Earth orbit whose solitary occupant had detected its presence. The Swarm Mother initiated her colonisation attempt with a three-stage invasion plan. The first stage had it budding a huge physical invasion force of Swarm buds based on genetic templates of predators that the Swarm had encountered on far off worlds. The Swarm Mother's expectation was for this attack to be driven back, but it was also conceived as both an exploratory probe to test humanity's resistance and to distract from the second phase of the attack. This came in the form of dropping roughly humanoid spies into position, their goal to observe and learn about human strengths and weaknesses, and to capture specimens to be transported back to the Swarm Mother for further interrogation and dissection. At this point, her plan was adapted to incorporate assistance from a third party, a Takisian named Zabb, who had sinister goals of his own. The final phase was one of infiltration where the Swarm Mother used its freshly-captured knowledge of human biology to replace people in power with human-like infiltrator Swarm buds in a move to foment a nuclear war. The Swarm Mother suffered two counter-attacks during this time. The first was an ineffectual direct attack by Starshine which did little more than scratch the surface of the huge biomass predator. The second was an infiltration attack by Fortunato, Mai Minh, and Yeoman, with the trio teleporting into the Swarm Mother's interior while Dr. Tachyon and Baby provided a distraction at a distance. Minh was able to mentally link with the Swarm Mother and turn it away from its endless path of destruction. Alien Traits The Swarm Mother is colossal in size, being about thirty kilometres long and twenty kilometres across. Its biomass is encased in a tough, resinous exterior that makes it highly durable and capable of surviving in the vacuum of space. It travels by various sublight means, most prominently organic solar sails and rocket propulsion. It has numerous methods of attack from energy discharges to the ability to manufacture biological agents and even entire armies of smaller Swarm buds. These Swarms buds form part of a hive mind like some faint telepathic connection between the various elements of a Swarm colony. Appearance The Swarm Mother looks like an asteroid roughly thirty kilometres long and twenty kilometres across. Personality The Swarm Mother had a calculating rudimentary intelligence, unfettered by morality or remorse. It simply sought to conquer territory and procreate extinguishing any resistance in its path. After mentally merging with Mai Minh, the Swarm Mother became a composite personality guided by philosophies of peaceful existence and the preservation of all life. Trivia Selected Reading * ** "Unto the Six Generation" ** "Mr Koyama's Comet" ** "With a Little Help From his Friends" ** "Half Past Dead" References Category:POV characters